It’s been a considerable amount of time since we last saw a chapter of the Chronicles of Narnia in the box office. The previous iteration, "Prince Caspian", did not turn out to be the runaway success that the first installment, "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe", turned out to be.  For this and perhaps other reasons that may or may not have had to do with the religious connotations of the series, Disney decided not to produce any future iterations of Narnia themselves. Considering that most of the people I’ve talked to claim "The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader" to be their favorite in the series of books these films are based on, it was perhaps a bad move on Disney’s part, and could have spelled disaster for the series if a new studio proved to not be up to the task. Fortunately, that did not prove to be the case.

For those of you not up to speed with the series, the Pevensie children originally travelled to the land of Narnia through a magical Wardrobe that served as a portal between the two worlds. There they became instrumental to ridding the land of the White Witch, joining forces with the lion Aslan, who serves as Narnia’s caretaker or another manifestation of God, if you really want to get into the allegory. With Aslan’s aid, the children became just rulers of the land in the evil White Queen’s stead, growing into adults over time before one day finding themselves accidentally wandering back through the wardrobe and emerging as children in their home as if they had never left. They were called back to Narnia a few years later to discover that many centuries had passed since they last left the world, and they needed to aid Prince Caspian in ascending to the throne as the rightful heir, not to mention repelling invaders from foreign lands within Narnia.

This time around, the Pevensie children are split up, with the older two beginning their real adult lives while the two youngest remain in foster care in the backdrop of World War 2. Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are staying with their sourpuss cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter, who has some of the best acting scenes in the movie and makes the original Edmund look like a saint). During an argument in their room, an odd painting of a sailing ship on the wall mysteriously comes to life and begins filling their room with sea water. The children surface to find themselves once again in the world of Narnia, which delights the returning veterans but seriously freaks out Eustace. They are met by a now King Caspian (Ben Barnes), surprised to find himself some years older than the children who, to his eyes, have hardly aged a day. Caspian explains that he is on a quest to find the missing seven lords of Narnia, who should have been aiding him in the just rule of Narnia had they not mysteriously vanished.  With the exception of Eustace, the children agree to help him in his quest.  In the course of their journeys, they have a number of fantastical adventures that get them ever closer to their goal of reaching the End of the World and solving the mystery of the missing noble lords.